I'll admit that this review is going to be a little biased… I saw some reviews of this and they seemed to be pretty lukewarm. Depending on where you look, the film has some wildly different receptions. Rotten Tomatoes currently has it around 45%. Here on Letterboxd, the reviews seem to be pretty positive. I went into this with no knowledge of the film and without having read anything on it. This was a good choice because the film really floored me.

Like I said, this is going to be a little biased because I’m currently going through a situation like the main character Ben. No, I can’t stop time…But I am coming off a particularly nasty breakup. I’m not…

My old mate Todd Gaines coined the phrase Beautifulism some seven months ago. It had nothing to do with beauty, but became a movement here on LB that has inspired many to declare their love for cinema and film in general. Knowing his taste in movies however, he seems to have a liking for scantily-clad women either on the poster or in the actual films. This film then should certainly appeal to my Georgia buddy as the poster here gives just a taste of the beauty held within. Sean Biggerstaff (no jokes) is a budding art student who develops insomnia following the break-up with his girlfriend. To fill those hours he takes a night job in a supermarket where he…

NOTE: This review contains some minor spoilers later in the text, but they are fairly unspecific.

British indie comedy in which art student Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) goes through a painful break-up (in an uncomfortable but oddly-beautiful silent opening sequence featuring Michelle Ryan screaming obscenities and hate into the camera). Rendered insomniac by his depression, Ben gets a night job at a grocery store. Oh, and he discovers he has the power to freeze time.

The quirky characters he meets resemble Napoleon Dynamite's cast of obnoxious but lovable weirdos. A little bit of these guys goes a long way, for sure, but their antics will definitely make you…

When I joined Letterboxd, I noticed there was a lot of controversy over the ogling of naked women in a grocery store. It's supposed to be a fantasy, so I don't get what the big deal is. He isn't a pervert or a voyeur. He's an art student, searching for the message he wants to send through his work. He settles on championing the female form, which I'm a huge proponent of. All he wants to do is find the beauty in the world and make it accessible for everyone else. Isn't that what art's about?

Most of the reviews I read about this film talk about the fact that there's some nudity. That's really not the point of this lovely little gem, though. There's a very gentle aesthetic here, some beautiful cinematic flourishes and a few interesting and original scene fades that convey the sense of time's fluidity.

Cashback deals with themes of love, beauty and the arbitrariness of time's supposed linear progress. There is some soft time travel, but not in the sci-fi sense. It's definitely a fantasy film, with a strong emphasis on romance and a gentle current of comedy, but I wouldn't call it a rom-com.

My old mate Todd Gaines coined the phrase Beautifulism some seven months ago. It had nothing to do with beauty, but became a movement here on LB that has inspired many to declare their love for cinema and film in general. Knowing his taste in movies however, he seems to have a liking for scantily-clad women either on the poster or in the actual films. This film then should certainly appeal to my Georgia buddy as the poster here gives just a taste of the beauty held within. Sean Biggerstaff (no jokes) is a budding art student who develops insomnia following the break-up with his girlfriend. To fill those hours he takes a night job in a supermarket where he…

a self-indulgent film trying to straddle being both an intellectually deep and powerful film with a teenage lad 'tits out for the boys' popcorn flick. You keep waiting for it to get better.......and the the credits roll

Fascinating in its singular (or singled out) repugnance, Cashback would be very easy to throw in the trash. Those who feel art is for use in exhibiting proper social values to the unwashed masses are the most wont to shun such films as this: those which exhibit and do not interrogate political immoralities such as, in this case, sexism. Odd, as Cashback should be an instance where the usefulness of honestly bigoted art is made clear.

A single perspective piece from the perspective of a fuckboy, but a specific fuckboy, this is also revealing self portraiture that would be mangled by the caricaturization of sneering satire. We can witness this manboy as he perceives himself and decide what specifically makes…